Manufacturing Industries

Industrial location favours proximity to market (option A), accessibility of power (option D) and availability of capital (option B).

Population density is not a preferred characteristic for industrial location as industries tend to be a source of pollution (noise, sound, air, water, and what not!) and, thus, inconvenience for habitants around.

IISCOs history began with the setting of India’s first blast furnace at Kulti-Burnpur in 1870 and production began in 1874. Hence, IISCO is the earliest Iron and Steel Company in India.

Tata Iron and Steel Company, established in 1907 by Dorabji Tata, and is, therefore, not the earliest Iron and Steel Company in India.

Visvesvaraiya Iron and Steel Works, which started operations with the name Mysore Iron and Steel Works in Karnataka, was founded in the year 1923.

Mumbai had several advantages as a cotton textile manufacturing centre.

• It was close to the cotton producing areas of Gujarat and Maharashtra.

• Mumbai was then the financial capita, and the capital needed to start an industry was available there.

• Port facility enabled easy accessibility to raw cotton, as well as imported machinery.

The cities Medinipur, Rishra and Konnagar are either further from the banks of the Hugli river, or are quite smaller to be an industrial nucleus region.

Maharashtra is the leading sugar producer state, and produces more than one-third of the total sugar production in the country.

Tamil Nadu and Punjab are minor sugar producing states in India.

Iron and steel industry is the basis to the industrial development of any country, since all the other sectors depend heavily on the iron and steel industry for their basic infrastructure.

Cottage industries can be divided into:

(a) Organised sector

(b) Decentralised sector

Decentralised sector includes cloth produced in handlooms and powerlooms.

The two sectors of cottage textile industry are the organised sector and the unorganised sector. The unorganised sector employs traditional methods and skilled artisans, whereas the organised sector works as any other modern industrial house.

Crude petroleum is the raw material for the petrochemical industry. Major products of this industry are plastics and other polymers, synthetic fibres like nylon and polyester, etc.

The Information Technology (IT) revolution opened up new possibilities of economic and social transformation in India. IT and IT-enabled business process outsourcing services continue to be on a robust growth path. A major impact of this growth has been on employment creation, which has doubled almost every year.

Britishers came to India as traders, hence their motive in colonising India was purely commercial. During their rule, the British were successful in exterminating Indian manufacturing industries, be it textiles, or any sector to aid their dominance. Thus, from being a net exporter to the world, India became a suppler of raw material to the British and consumer of finished goods made in (industrial) Britain. The Britishers made their way not just into the material aspects of Indian life but also into the minds of the people. Everything British was considered of a higher standard, elite and modern, especially by the wealthy. Both Indian psyche and physique were turning western. The colonial powers held to India by the argument, India cannot be a nation without the British help.

The Swadeshi movement began in Bengal in 1905, when Viceroy Curzon partitioned it. This was an economic strategy aimed at removing the British from power and improving the economic conditions in India by following the principles of self-reliance. The movement, thus, involved the boycotting British products and production processes and the revival of domestic products and production processes. This movement was the most successful of the pre-Gandhian movements.

The movement rose to new heights under the leadership of Gandhi, who was accompanied by far-sighted Indian industrialists. The movement gave these industrialists an opportunity to utilise the patriotic fervour in their advantage. Cotton textile industry, among others, were one of the major beneficiaries of this wave of patriotism as people began to switch to Indian-made products like khadi with pride. This surge in demand led to an expansion of the cotton textile industry, and soon cotton mills were found all over India, as they became location independent.

The leaders of free India, after Independence, recognised the importance of planned growth for India, as centuries of colonial rule had left her in much ruins and regional chaos. The plan was to achieve import-substitution led industrialisation. The Indian economy, thus, followed a socialist mode of growth, with the state controlling and planning the allocation of resources, much until the early 1990s when the economy ran into gross imbalances.

The economy required serious reform measures to correct it and orient it towards the market forces. Thus, was born the New Industrial Policy in 1991. The policy document aimed at reducing the inefficiencies, creating space for private initiatives and attain international competitiveness. The measure initiated were:

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